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Contour   /kˈɑntˌʊr/   Listen
noun
Contour  n.  
1.
The outline of a figure or body, or the line or lines representing such an outline; the line that bounds; periphery. "Titian's coloring and contours."
2.
(Mil.) The outline of a horizontal section of the ground, or of works of fortification.
Contour feathers (Zool.), those feathers that form the general covering of a bird.
Contour of ground (Surv.), the outline of the surface of ground with respect to its undulation, etc.
Contour line (Topographical Suv.), the line in which a horizontal plane intersects a portion of ground, or the corresponding line in a map or chart.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Contour" Quotes from Famous Books



... other things which gave him the look of the great Napoleon. The contour of feature was the same: and on his brow, broad and massive, there might be seen those grand shadows with which French artists love to glorify the Emperor. Yet in addition to this he had that same serene immobility of countenance which characterized the other, which could serve as an impenetrable ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille

... a long tail, and woollen night-cap; he was a soldier, and from the more than usual glances of the girl, I presumed was her lover. He was, beyond compare, the gallant and the dancer of the party. Next came two boors: one of whom, in the whole contour of his face and person, and, above all, in the laughably would-be frolicksome kick out of his heel, irresistibly reminded me of Shakespeare's Slender, and the other of his Dogberry. Oh! two such faces, and two such postures! O that I were an Hogarth! What an enviable ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull

... and went down to porridge in a glow. Porridge, for the major was Scotch, and had taught his French cook to make it as the Scotch make it. Then, going out into the hall, from a table on which lay a contour map of the battle region, the major picked up a hideous mask that seemed to have been made for ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... artificially archaic phrases or harmonies. Kothner's reading of the rules of correct minstrelsy is one of the exceptions, and the night-watchman's crying of the hour is another; but these, as Lamb said of Coleridge's philosophic preaching, are "only his fun." The melodies are often quite Weberesque in contour; the harmonies are either plain work-a-day ones or modern—so modern that no one had used them before. Nor it is by the sadness of the music alone that he gains his end: some of the merriest scenes belong, by reason of the music, to mediaeval times. By his art, ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman

... billowing fields sailed away the gray steamer, cutting a path that sprayed and sang after. Sunlight danced and lay whitely as far as the eye could reach. It prolonged for those on shore the contour of the line of faces above each deck; it picked points of light from off everywhere—off smokestacks and polished railings, off plate-glass and brass-bound port-holes and even down the ship's flank, to where gilt letters spelled ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst


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